Family and the older days of Tittensor feature in this week's Newsletter and it was appropriate that should happen as we prepare to say goodbye to one of the village's most longstanding residents, Eric Brownsill, whose funeral will take place at Luke's at 11.00 a.m. on Monday 15th August.  His body will be laid to rest with the remains of his wife Rae, who died five years ago.  Eric had lived in the village for nearly sixty years and his family, raised here, still retains strong connections.

Coming together as families, where we have them, has been a vital, healing action of the last few months.  Grandparents are seeing grandchildren for the first time, for example, with families having been kept apart by COVID.  We are all seeing people that we haven't met for a long time, who perhaps once featured regularly in our lives.

Sadly, that opportunity has been denied many, who have lost relatives and friend to the disease and for other reasons and who have had to find different ways of grieving and coping.

As human beings, we will all have been through such times; it has been impossible to escape them and some might say that it is a feature of life that, in our otherwise quite sanitised lives, we have got used to shying away from.  It was a huge shock to be told by a funeral director, early in the COVID pandemic, that they couldn't cope with the huge upsurge in deaths.  When one thinks of the human suffering for everyone connected that such a simple lament must have meant, the mind and heart recoil.  This was not a person complaining of overwork; just like our NHS workers, the funeral director's principal concern was that he thought that he might not be able to support people adequately in their time of need.

With the reduced numbers of people allowed at funerals, even that opportunity to draw together and support the bereaved was denied us and, for those suffering, the pain went on longer.

Fortunately, the reopening of churches like St Luke's allowed people to attend memorial services and to just drop into the building for some quiet time, perhaps a prayer and maybe a sob.  The comfort for Christians at such moments is that we believe that, even when sitting alone in St Luke's, or when alone at home, God is also present.  When Jesus, that man and God who so loved each one of us, said 'I will be with you always,' he meant it.  It's a belief and a feeling that has carried people through the most terrible of times, whether it be a personal tragedy at home, someone like Terry Waite, kidnapped and held for years in a darkened room, or Pastor Alexandra, working away to help people in Ukraine as the shells rain down on innocent people, as we can read about in the Newsletter.

Eric Brownsill's family has invited everyone to come along to his funeral; let us pray that friends and relatives can provide comfort on the day.  What I can be certain of is that however many people are inside St Luke's, the number will always be 'plus one', as Jesus will be there too.  Amen.